Intrusion Detection

Because ARP spoofing requires an attacker to send traffic, network IDSs can detect this attack.

Cisco network IDS5 has a few signatures related to ARP spoofing based on the ATOMIC.ARP engine.

A free tool, ARPwatch6, can detect an ARP spoofing attack. Typically, ARPwatch runs on a Linux host and processes all ARP packets on an attached Ethernet segment. ARPwatch executes multiple checks on the ARP packets: Is it a malformed packet? Is it a new MAC address (this is a MAC address never seen on the network)? Is it a new MAC address for an old IP address (probably a sign of an ARP spoofing attack)? ARPwatch generates alerts by sending an e-mail to an administrator. Example 6-9 shows the e-mail sent when a new MAC address appears on the network. It will then be up to the administrator to check whether this new MAC address is a valid one (this is a new device that has joined the network).

Example 6-9 ARPwatch Alert for a New MAC Address

Subject: new station

(adsl) eth0

Date: Thu, 3 May 2007

11:16:12 +0200

From: "Arpwatch charly" <[email protected]>

To: <[email protected]>

hostname:

adsl

ip address:

192.0.2.1

interface:

eth0

ethernet address:

0:4:27:fd:52:40

ethernet vendor:

Cisco Systems, Inc.

timestamp:

Thursday, May 3, 2007 11:16:12 +0200

Example 6-10 shows the alert generated when ARPwatch detects a possible ARP spoofing attack: It has received an ARP reply packet that contradicts the binding <IP, MAC> of Example 6-9.

Mitigating Other ARP Vulnerabilities 117

Example 6-10 ARPwatch Alert for a Potential ARP Spoofing Attack

From: [email protected] (Arpwatch charly)

To: [email protected]

Subject: changed ethernet address (adsl) eth0

Date: Thu, 3 May 2007 13:31:15 +0200 (CEST)

hostname:

adsl

ip address:

192.0.2.1

interface:

eth0

ethernet address:

0:15:58:27:83:dc

ethernet vendor:

<unknown>

old ethernet address:

0:4:27:fd:52:40

old ethernet vendor:

Cisco Systems, Inc.

timestamp:

Thursday, May 3, 2007 13

31

14

+0200

previous timestamp:

Thursday, May 3, 2007 13

29

23

+0200

delta:

1 minute

Continue reading here: Motivation for IPv6

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